Dugald Stewart (1753–1828) lectured in astronomy and
political economy, held the chair
of mathematics at Edinburgh University from 1775 to 1785, then the chair
of moral
philosophy from 1785 to 1810, and wrote extensively on metaphysics,
political economy,
ethics, philology, aesthetics, psychology and the history of philosophy
and the experimental
sciences. He is commonly regarded as the last voice of the Scottish
Enlightenment, the
articulate disciple of Thomas Reid, father of Scottish common sense
philosophy. Recently
some historians have begun to rediscover elements of the contribution
Stewart made to
early nineteenth-century British intellectual culture, and his
Collected Works have been
republished with a new introduction by Knud Haakonssen.